Mahathir’s three sons and his Mess

They became directors of 200 companies in only a few years!!!

“A denial mode’ or ‘selected amnesia’ are words levelled at Dr. Mahathir Mohamad when he accuses the government of tolerating a ‘police state’ or corruption or press control.

One of the more frequent accusations made by Dr. M on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is that his son and son-in-law had large business deals due to father’s connection.

Dr. M referred to deals made by Mr. Abdullah's son, Mr Kamaluddin Abdullah and by Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, the premier's son-in-law, without giving details.

When asked about business connections of his own three sons, Dr. M replied, “No. During my time, my children were not given any role at all. You don't hear of my children directing people or influencing people or selling influence or getting paid.

“They were not supposed to have business with the government unless of course they tender out in the usual way. If their tender is good, I suppose they win but very, very little."

In 2000, (then PM) Dr Mahathir defended his three businessmen sons in a candid interview with the monthly magazine Gosip, declaring it was unrealistic to ban his children from commercial activities.

"I cannot say, look here, your father is Prime Minister, please be poor," he said. Today, he makes the same charges against PM Abdullah.

There are some striking figures of the Mahathir children business connections when he was Prime Minister.

“Three of Mahathir's children, namely Mirzan, Mokhzani and Mukhriz Mahathir - acted as directors in more than 200 companies in a short span of a few years.

“According to searches made at the Registry of Companies at the end of 1994, Mirzan had interests in 98 companies, Mokhzani in 48 companies and Mukhriz in 67 companies.

Whether Tun Mahathir is telling us the truth or he is plain lying!” Figure out yourself!!!

Mahathir's mess

A political vendetta that is doing Malaysia nothing but damage.

Malaysians with a sense of humour may be entertained by Mahathir Mohamad’s belated enthusiasm for clean government and outspoken democratic debate. In his 22 years as their prime minister, the prickly Dr Mahathir was not noted for his tolerance of criticism, constructive or otherwise. Newspapers toed the government line or soon found themselves in difficulty, and judges whose rulings were not to Dr Mahathir’s liking were unceremoniously dismissed.

It was an open secret that his method of governing combined strong state intervention with complex patterns of political patronage, but curiosity about the lucrative business opportunities enjoyed by his sons and specially favoured associates was robustly discouraged. Anwar Ibrahim, the deputy he initially groomed to succeed him, spent years in prison on trumped-up charges for daring to say publicly that corruption had reached critical dimensions.

How things change. Having reluctantly relinquished the reins of power three years ago, Dr Mahathir has done with such taboos. Claiming that he is “saving the nation from disaster”, he has launched streams of unproven and damaging allegations against Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, his successor as Prime Minister. These include nepotism, incompetence and even selling out the country — this last because of the sensible decision to cancel a pet Mahathir mega-project, a somewhat pointless bridge that would have gone only halfway across the Johore Strait between Malaysia and Singapore

This is no joking matter. The problem is not unfamiliar. Dr Mahathir admits that he considered Datuk Badawi “harmless” — in other words, content to take dictation. He is hardly the first political leader to be appalled by the discovery that apparently docile protégés can develop a mind of their own once installed in office, or the first to take that revelation badly. Baroness Thatcher’s disillusion with John Major comes to mind.

But Dr Mahathir has gone far beyond mutterings of discontent. He denies it, but it is by now obvious that he is openly campaigning to replace Datuk Badawi, who won a landslide electoral victory only two years ago, with Najib Razak, the deputy prime minister whom he publicly regrets not having chosen for the top job.

Malaysia may have had a surfeit of forced consensus politics during Dr Mahathir’s long reign, but the vendetta he is conducting has little to do with robust political debate, and a lot to do with one man’s obsession with himself.